Much needed vent.

It was really good to get your input @Appleblossom. I'm sure @chibam will be along shortly. I absolutely love my interactions - deep and lighter - with @chibam. He reminds me that intellect is out there and that there is more to life than recounting our problems - even though it is essential at times. I just love his mind and his turn of phrase. I also love language and the knowledge it can convey by its correct usage. Chibam has it in spades.

I wish there was a way to develop more of these interactions. I have my areas of expertise but talk of the intricacies of politics goes over my head, unfortunately. I'm happy to be a bystander in such interactions and am always trying to broaden my outlook and knowledge. My current online course is testing my abilities and causing considerable information overload at times!

Cooooeee to you too @Appleblossom.

I love language too @Historylover

I deeply relate to some of the hurt @chibam mentions from his experience with the MH system.

That is why I keep supporting posts about it.

Hi @Historylover & @Appleblossom ! Interruptions are fine by me, @Appleblossom !

Thanks for letting me know about the cancellation of tonight's seminar, @Historylover . I got a notification about it in my alerts, but TBH, I probably would've glossed over it, just assuming that it was a reminder that there was an event on tonight, if you hadn't pointed out otherwise.

What a shame! I was really looking forward to it, too. Hoping @Daisydreamer feels better soon!

I didn't catch that Osher Gunsberg program myself, @Historylover . But I can understand where your coming from. I, too, find most of those mainstream mental health segments/programs incredibly frustrating. Over-simplification abounds, and the message is always clearly biased with a heavy pro-mental-health-system agenda; no openness about the ugly side of things, or the issues that the system has decided it doesn't want to address.

It's not just a case of: "Well, it would be impossible to adequately address the full, widespread issue of mental illness in just a one-hour program, so naturally a lot of details have been edited out, and a lot of the concepts have been over-simplified, due to time constraints." No, I often feel that it is much more strategic then that. That the time-constraint necessity to trim the discussion down deliberately targets ideas & points-of-view that the producers are eager to avoid.

It's just an observation about mainstream mental health coverage in general, rather then commentary about any specific program. As I said, I didn't even see that Osher Gunsberg show.

---

@Appleblossom wrote:

Triumphal and Redemptive Stories can be inspiring, but in the wrong way can also become a part of a cancel culture, in that ... the charges of callous comparison ... if you tried harder it could turn out all good for you ... logic not enuff effort .... and you did not have to put up with ... ultimate put down

Yes, I think I know what your getting at, @Appleblossom . Like, it's unfair to impose an expectation on someone to accomplish something, simply because some else - in differant circumstances - accomplished something similar. Broken neck victim Alex McKinnon managed to walk again, whereas broken neck victim Christopher Reeve didn't. What can we learn from that? Well, obviously Reeve must've been too lazy to put in the hard yards that McKinnon did.

It's never that simple. But unfortunately, a lot of gung-ho 'motivators' love to make out that it is. And as a result, a lot of the supposedly "motivational" stories that are thrust upon us can make our lives much for difficult, by feeding those around us inappropriate expectations of what to expect from us.

To say nothing of the fact that it can feed others with ambitions for us that are totally incompatable with our own dreams.

"Oh, so some blind guy managed to scale the Matterhorn? Good for him! But exactly why does that mean I'm obliged to develop a sudden obsession with mountain climbing, and dedicate myself to becoming a world-class mountain climber, myself?", ect., ect.

I'm sorry that you, too, have had a rough go of it in the mental health system, @Appleblossom . There are an awful lot of us around, aren't there?

@chibamI just wanted to add to your post as I had an epiphany - I'm also in the same prison as that Russian man.

After my ex-husband left us and I then relinquished our daughters to him for the many reasons previously outlined, my ex-psychiatrist told me to imagine myself in another room of the house in order to cope. It really helped, but I'm still there and I can't get out of that room - not even to physically move elsewhere in the hope of doing so. My circumstances are all working against me. I'm stuck here as surely as he was stuck there. After decades, I still - often - imagine how it will be when when my family and I work through these problems, as my psychiatrist led me to believe would happen. Believing it will be otherwise is just more than I can bear. Then reality dawns again and I am back in the prison.

I'm also wondering if my ex-psychiatrist has as much trouble finding where he fits as I, and so many others, do. That's another possibility for why he offered his now-relinquished offer of friendship. There's no reason to think he is different to anyone else. We are all looking for our people - and he is an immigrant which adds another degree of complexity to his 'fitting in'. I have great respect for other cultures. Perhaps that made him feel 'in' and in a place where he was valued - not seen as 'other' which was common back then. He has certainly shown himself to be 'other' than he presented himself. I wonder - are we all?

Anyway - no need to answer. Just venting another realization and wanted to draw this further comparison to your post.

Here's to continuing to search for ways of turning our ships around! Cheers!

EDIT: Five minutes later...we just had an earthquake! The worst and longest I have ever experienced. Just amazing!

Just wonder if you're finding your life busy and fulfilled enough @Appleblossom, or if you might find enrolling in an online course of value to extending your tertiary education even further? Just a thought.

Hope things are going fine on Woiwurrung country. Cheers from Wurundjeri country! Sending best wishes.

EDIT: Five minutes later - did you get that earthquake about 9.15am @Appleblossom ?

Yep @Historylover

I thought it was next door in the garage or possums in the roof ... with extra zing!

5.8 epicentre Mansfield

We were told at Earth Science Dept every few years between 2-3 on richter scale was the norm for Melb, so it is notable. Epicentres are on the east in foothills of Great Dividing.

Re more formal education ... I have a lot of certificates ... could do a Masters but have not decided in which field I want to restrict my research or commit my time to. I keep an eye open for the types of postgrad courses available, and it is quite a moveable feast. My daughter has post doctorate and on a great career path. My son has refused school for a long time, dipped in and out of tertiary and needs a different kind of support. Still busy with all that. Just give him quick back rub, as typing this post. So I understand the value and LIMITS of both the formal and autodidact approach. His circs are parly in reaction to a bullying life long professor in international American uni

I taught ages from 3-mid 60s. In one narrow skill set, but my education is very broad.... science ... humanities ... music. Teaching my support workers and medical centre some earth science Aussie skills as opposed to poison everything in site as pseudo effective approach to property maintainance. Ie in I share plants from my garden and nurture them to survive the summer.

At a professional development course 2 years ago, top international lady suggested I stick with my alma mater for cred, rather than endless online courses. At this stage in my life I can finally cherry pick. I work on a personal creative practise approach. ie I have 4 instruments, exercise and gardening, research whatever pops into my head and yes I do want to do writing and may find being attached to a uni valuable when the time is right, but that is not now. Been independent professional for over 25 years. On balance most of my time on this website is def for mental health advocacy, as that has more meaning than collecting papers simply for the sake of it.

I am also physically disabled and varying my daily activities is essential for keeping pain at bay. Thanks for thinking of me tho.

Apple

@chibam

@Historylover Just read your post to chibam mentioning the relinquishing of your daughters. In a very sad way I too have relinquished my daughters, though not totally in my heart. Something huge we have in common. Few can imagine the level of abuse that leads to that kind of scenario.

Thank you @Appleblossom. I don't know much about your own personal circumstances but I know they have been harrowing. Life wasn't meant to be easy - but so difficult? I don't know how you have managed to have attained such a level of education on so many subjects despite it. Intelligence must be an inherited factor in your lineage. I am having to resurrect it in mine, but changes are taking place.

I am finding myself in at the deep end with my online course but am giving it my best. It does my head in at times. So many of the finer points to learn re assignments but the challenge is rewarding. I'd very much like to do more when it finishes, but don't know whether to look further afield and try something new or stick with what I know and advance it. Time will tell.

Anyway, pleased to hear that your life is so fulfilled. I am working on mine. Take care.

@Historylover @Appleblossom Hello Melbournians! Hoping you are both well in the aftermath of that earthquake! I didn't feel it myself, but it's certainly been in the news up here. Such an unusual occurance for Australia, isn't it? The only one I've personally experianced in all my years is when we got a little tremor on the edge of that Newcastle quake. That would have to be about 30 years ago by now!

@Historylover, yes, that sense of being imprisoned by our circumstances is very relatable, isn't it? Much like that Russian, I believe that many of my lifelong woes can be chalked up to being born into (or in his case, swept up it) an unfriendly regime. I often find myself wondering how differant things could have been if only I'd had more morale and social support when starting out... from teachers, from family... and even from the mental health system when I needed it.

I get a fair bit of passive-aggressive commentary pointing to other people we know as supposedly "successful" people who have "worked hard for their success". And I can't help but be struck by the reality that, despite the fact that these people may have had to work had, they all started out from the position of being born into a regime that was friendly towards the role they have now adopted. None of these people had to build up a brand new society in order to give themselves, and their way of living, a home. To my way of thinking, they've had a relatively easy go of it.

I think I get what your saying about how your psychiatrist - and indeed all of us - presents himself as something "other" then the reality. That is an issue that weighs on me greatly, and I've probably mentioned it numerous times before. How much do we have to surrunder our true selves, in order to fit in? In particular, in order to avoid offending others and/or conflicting with them? How much of ourselves is lost in translation? How much are we misinterpreted by those around us, because we don't know how to communicate clearly with them?

It's difficult enough to wrestle with these problems in the context of your own cultural background, let alone throwing in the added confusion of differant cultural backgrounds. I'm a white, British-decended, Christian-backgrounded man. The vast majority of people I know are white, British-decended, Christian-backgrounded people. Yet I don't understand any of the people I know.

I've been wrestling with this a lot lately; rethinking a lot of what's gone on in my past, and wondering if the other people involved had a radically differant concept about what was going on to my own.

The more I try to figure life out, the most lost and confused I become.

@chibam - you're always on pin-point accuracy.

At one of my most recent attempts at social interaction, I had early decided not to divulge anything about myself - just release it bit by bit, as it felt safe. But no matter how I try to maintain my privacy - it's impossible. I don't judge others, and I make the mistake of thinking they will show me the same courtesy. It simply doesn't work that way. It does for them but not for me. It's like they are just waiting for me to give them new, more exciting fodder with which to ingratiate themselves to others of their kind. Did you know...? Have you heard... So is gossiping an essential part to fitting in with people? It seems to me it must be. But then I'd get "She said this about you...- whether I had or not. I just can't win.

Then, for me as a woman, there is the dilemma of - do I dress down to fit in or dress up to give myself a very rare treat?

And then there is the matter of opinions. I find it safer to keep mine to myself rather that rock the boat - but that just causes others' opinions to take precedence and me to be relegated to 'follower'. Simply tagging along. My family life was like that too.

I'm with you regarding the more I try to work things out the more confused I become.

All is well on the quake-front! Take care.